It was a pleasant Sunday for all along the Southern California coastline. Accompanied by several of my fellow grad students, I enjoyed a peaceful day at the beach. When we were leaving, we had the fantastic idea of going back to one of our apartment complexes to do some hot tubbing. We went our separate ways to scrounge for dinner, and then met up at the hot tub around 8 pm. There were about ten of us in attendance. We socialized, laughed...and we lived!The following Monday morning was nothing out of the ordinary. We all went to work, enjoying the satisfaction and glory that only a few can appreciate as what comes with being a chemistry Ph.D. student. Following work, we all went home.
And then....it was 10:30 pm. That was the moment we all got the jacuzzi death virus. There is something I must tell you about said virus. It does not discriminate against anyone. All ten of us fell ill at exactly 10:30 pm on Monday evening. We had fevers of 105F, initial vomiting, intense dizziness, nausea, and a feeling like our lungs were filled with a toxic gas that made it difficult to breathe. At first I thought it was something I ate, but over the course of the next 24 hours of communication, we had finally realized that it had happened to all of us that had gone to the jacuzzi on Sunday night.
I was the first to go to the walk-in clinic. I told them I had a fever of 105F and that I was vehemently sick. They gave me some paperwork to fill out and sent me to the waiting room. I felt like I was dying, and all I could manage to do was lay on the ground and cry. The other patrons in the room tried not to stare (or help). I finally got called in, and they weighed me. Two days earlier, I had been 5'4" and 117 lbs. Today I was 108 lbs. Needless to say, this was not good; I could not afford to lose any more weight.
The doctor looked in my nose, saw that it was plugged, and proclaimed that I had a cold. I told her that I had been crying for the last 3 hours, and that I did not have a cold. She scowled at me, barking "why are you crying???!?" I explained that I felt like I was dying and had a high fever in addition to the trouble with my lungs. After confirming that I had a fever, she gave me some Tylenol and explained that I must have the flu, because everyone else had the flu. I explained that there were ten of us that had all gotten sick following exposure to the jacuzzi, and she said it was probably because of something we ate. I told her we didn't eat together and she said it was because we drank too much and were hungover. I told her I didn't have anything to drink, and she said that somebody at the jacuzzi had the flu and that we all must have contracted it. She also told me that you can't get sick from a jacuzzi. Unfortunately, facts and logic beg to differ. My phone rang during our visit as I was expecting my boyfriend to come pick me up and he didn't know how to get there (which I explained to the doctor). The doctor immediately became irate and informed me that she would leave if I answered the phone. I silenced it, and she told me to leave. I was too delirious and emaciated to argue.
Anyway, all ten of us eventually made it to the doctor, and every one of us was told that we had the flu because "everyone else had the flu." After doing some research (as chemists, I like to thing that we are at least partially competent enough to determine the scientific validity of what diseases we might have, based on facts), we had all come to the conclusion that we most likely had a virus known as Pontiac fever. This is a milder form of the more widely publicized Legionnaire's disease, and can only be confirmed by a blood test. Grad student F brought this up to her doctor, who replied, "I don't know what Pontiac fever is, but you don't have it." How can you know if someone has something if you don't know what it is? You can't. Grad student T was given Tamiflu by his doctor, and upon taking it became violently sick and ended up developing a serious and recurring cough. A few of us asked for the blood test, and all requests were denied by the doctors (all of which admitted to having no knowledge of any diseases that could be caused by a public hot tub). The last couple of our group that made it in were greeted by remarks along the lines of, "oh, you're one of them." We had inadvertently become notorious throughout the local hospitals and clinics.
I was on my back for an entire week before I could get up and walk around. The sickness in my lungs hung around for a good month following the ordeal. We never confirmed that it was Pontiac fever, but we also never confirmed that it was the flu. We complained to the apartment complex about their jacuzzi, but they informed us that somebody cleans it once a week (public spas should be checked daily!) so that this was an unlikely occurrence. They closed the spa for a week until the cleaning crew came by, but other than that they did nothing.
I found the complete ignorance and lack of caring on the part of at least five different doctors to be utterly appalling. We were violently sick and looking to them for help, and all they could do was sneer at us from atop their self-entitled pedestals.
As I left the doctor's office that evening, feeling dejected and abused, I pulled out my wallet to pay my $15 co-pay. The desk attendant informed me there would be no co-pay, so I staggered out of the building and into my boyfriend's car. A week later, I received a bill from the clinic in the amount of $15. FML.
